


Stolen/Shared

by merelyafigment, visionofblue (merelyafigment)



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29746344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyafigment/pseuds/merelyafigment, https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyafigment/pseuds/visionofblue
Summary: Miguel Alvarez is well aware of how some things happened between him and Ryan O'Reily, but others will never entirely make sense to him. Or: the guys steal time and oranges together. (Could followSqueeze, I think, but doesn't necessarily have to.)
Relationships: Miguel Alvarez/Ryan O'Reily
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Stolen/Shared

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LunaDeSangre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaDeSangre/gifts).



> **Author's Notes:** For [Lunadesangre](/users/Lunadesangre), because I love their fic for this pairing immensely, and it's influenced me quite a bit since my return to writing the pairing. One bit in particular is probably directly inspired by an image that stuck in my head from their wonderful oz_magi fic [Dodging Specters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28795101).

It was yet another fucking thing in Miguel's life --a life which somehow managed to be both insanely eventful and a fucking dull drag through shit-- that Miguel couldn't have seen coming, no fucking way, no fucking how. But in a fucked up way it happened like most things did when it came to him -- it started simple, with a dash of fucking crazy. 

(It started sticky and sweet.) 

It started a bit after they'd worked shit out and were running smoothly. Them working together, partnering low and slow, sneaky in the background, shoring up safety and power. 

Miguel had needed it. He'd had nothing. This fucking place had taken everything from him, even his family. He gave (he took -- eyes and lives) and it took everything else, all his chances, every momentary space he found to breathe. No one at his back, by his side. He was-- fuck, working in the shadows with O'Reily had been the smallest bit of safety he'd been able to snatch. The mick was like a desperate shank, tucked into his sock, close and quiet. 

O'Reily had needed it, too-- though he'd never fucking admit it. Acted like he was doing Miguel some big fucking favor at first, teaming up with him to deal with a few issues out of everyone's sight. But Miguel wasn't another puppet putting his strings in Ryan O'Reily's hands, and he certainly wasn't fucking stupid enough to think O'Reily was just being magnanimously helpful because he accidentally ate a good Samaritan nugget one day or something. Cadre of redheads he led backing him up or not, the Irishman had been losing a step when Miguel had stepped in. Maybe nobody else had clued in yet, but Miguel saw the stumble coming. Felt it, in his weary bones. (He knew what the fall felt like, after all. So maybe it was like, he could sense it, the sharp tug towards the dirt that was hovering close.) O'Reily's brother, his years stretching before him, had been dragging his ass down until he was in danger of losing the beat. 

They found that beat again together, thrumming underneath the rest of the noise in this shithole. 

It was business. (It was that little bit of safety, something they scraped into a useful edge along the endless stone of Oz.) 

Until one day it wasn't. 

Tucked away to discuss-- Miguel couldn't even remember what, after the fact. The ignition had razed most of what came before it from his mind. Maybe they'd been conferring on the Icarus arc of Adebisi, both of them realizing it was time for that fucker to burn and plummet from touching the sun? Or maybe it had been something else. Wasn't the Russian-- his blood had already been rinsed down the drain, off of Miguel's hands. 

But they hadn't just been discussing. 

And it wasn't just business. 

Oranges. 

It was oranges, snagged and secreted into a private room. Another stolen meeting of scrubs and kitchen whites. (Ryan bitched every damn time he had to switch to delivering trays to cross quiet paths with Miguel, who was conversely pretty fucking pleased to be back on infirmary duty.) 

O'Reily had bitched, but he'd brought oranges, and Miguel had peeled. 

They'd shared. 

They shared shit now, anecdotes and smirks, intel and personal-- 

\--couldn't remember when _that_ part of it had started. It had just sort of flowed forth slowly and made sense, as they'd tucked closer together, wound their safety around each other, becoming back-up and accomplices. With them working together, of course it made sense for little tidbits to occasionally drop, like what flavor lollipops Miguel liked best, what places in his glossy wishful magazines Ryan most wanted to see, and all the little facts about 'em he had squirreled away in that active brain. What places Miguel dreamed about, the stories he knew about them eagerly consumed in turn. Stuff followed from there, the stories of life outside. The old days of idiotic youth wasted when they weren't both sightseeing through juvie, ripping off skin mags from the local bodega, and getting under Mary Catherine's skirt. (Ryan knew so many fucking Mary Catherines it was kind of hilarious.) 

And yeah, other shit slipped, too. Tales of being one in a line of Alvarez men who stood on the streets alone, because every one before him had ended up in the same place, leaving him behind until the inevitability caught him, and he joined them still without ever really being near them. Clues about Ryan's Pops being a real piece of work sort of came through the cracks in the snatches of stories of growing up, of a woman lost to sickness who had made Ryan feel kind of alone, too. Brothers getting up to shit together, compared to being surrounded by women he felt a responsibility to, which he had sort of just set down, and the guilt-- look, shit snuck out over time, and even that made sense. 

This part, though, Miguel remembered exactly when it happened. The pivot point when it had changed. He had perfect clarity regarding the details of it, if not anything else, like the fucking reason. And it made the least fucking sense of all. It didn't-- it didn't follow naturally like stories of Bridget Street, Morogoro, Miguel's love of a purring engine, and the ghosts hidden in the looming walls of Ad-Seg. 

It didn't-- it _shouldn't_ have just followed along like everything else. O'Reily was hard to entirely crack, even with all the slivers Miguel could see that most didn't, but Miguel was pretty fucking sure Ryan had never fucked around with Adebisi, and those two had been accomplices for years. 

(Miguel had never really had a partner in crime for that long-- not in years. Not in here. No one truly on his side ever, not really, it had turned out when they'd all turned on him. Definitely hadn't had anyone to fuck, despite winking at the few skirts that swished briefly behind their bars.) 

This... 

Sticky. 

And sweet. 

And totally bugs crazier than pleading with God or talking with the dead at the end of a rope made of sheets. 

The details he remembered-- 

He'd peeled, and Ryan had complained, preferring to be back in the kitchen overseeing shit. 

The juice had been everywhere, pulling the rind off in chunks, getting under Miguel's nails, unable to get a good long strip going, though he'd been trying-- 

They shared. 

He'd meant to hand the fucker a slice, one that looked to have a bunch of seeds. (He was sharing, not a Saint. He was doing the work, right? Let the lazy guy spit.) 

The day they were handing out personal boundaries? Ryan O'Reily hadn't shown up. He'd probably been in heaven's waiting room, curled around a future Mary Catherine, slipping hands and tongue up her metaphorical skirt. 

Miguel had held out-- a fucking mess of dripping sweet juice between three fingers-- 

Ryan had dipped his head, stolen closer with his long easy-- no word for it other than grace. Or no, maybe there were many words Miguel was learning about him, falling into his head like the mouth that drew down to his fingers-- limber and bending and boneless-- 

Tongue and teeth, stealing juice and the out held slice, scraping Miguel's skin, tickling with wet heat. 

Sticky and sweet and fucking crazy, following fast and without sense. 

Tasting oranges right off of Ryan O'Reily's lips. 

Mouth. 

Tongue. 

Sticky hands grabbing Ryan's neck to pull him impossibly closer, fingers stroking in a tacky drag over Ryan's throat. 

Under his kitchen whites. 

(Ryan's endless bitching disappearing, forgotten, no more complaints about the changes to his routine.) 

Wet heat of that thieving mouth leaving fruit behind for more of Miguel's skin. Rough hands stealing more ground, under Miguel's scrubs, eliminating any remaining space between them. 

Nah, Miguel would never figure out the why. 

The how. 

The move from one thing, to the other. 

But he'd remember the exact second it had physically happened-- that last bit of distance vanishing. 

Ryan snatching his orange slice right out of Miguel's fingers. 

Swallowed up. 

Sticky and sweet. 

And closer than ever. 

***  
End

**Author's Note:**

>  **End Notes** : This wasn't originally planned as a follow up to [Squeeze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29488476), but as I got closer to finishing it I realized it could fit in after that very well, in some 'verse where Miguel did win an orange off Ryan in a poker game, and Ryan did subtly reach out to help him pick his head up and survive. Or I'm just currently obsessed with writing them sharing fruit, and you can also read it as unrelated to that ficlet. ;)


End file.
